In an interview with Ars Technica, though, Nintendo of America Senior Director of Communication Charlie Scibetta expressed confidence that these outside publishers will come back to the Wii U as the systems sales increase in the future.

"We want the same thing that the third parties want, which is to grow the installed base," Scibetta told Ars. "We're confident that if we can do that by driving the installed base through first-party software, like Mario Kart 8, like Super Smash Bros., then the third-party developers will follow because then they'll see there's a large enough installed base that it's worth their investment to bring their games to our platform. So it's our job to grow that installed base to make it more attractive for them to come to our platform."

Scibetta pointed out that the 1.2 million sales of Mario Kart 8 in its opening weekend last month "helped hardware sales as well" and that he expects "a similar type of lift in terms of interest" when Super Smash Bros. for Wii U comes out later this year.

Outside of those games, though, most of the major Wii U titles Nintendo showed at E3 this year were slated for 2015 or later. That might be a long time to wait for the kind of console sales that could make the Wii U more attractive to outside developers again.

But Scibetta said he was confident that the system already "reached a tipping point on software" and that "we don't feel like we have to wait until 2015 to get that momentum." In any case, he said rushing games out to push the console forward would be somewhat self-defeating.

"Sure, everybody would like to have games earlier, but the good thing about Nintendo is that product quality is really important to us, so we would never ship it early just to help our bottom line or our financials for the holiday season," he told Ars. "It's much more important for us to protect the brand, the goodwill we've built up with fans over the years."

"The good thing about Nintendo is we've been dedicated to gaming for over 30 years now, and it's not like we do anything else," he continued, marking a contrast between Nintendo and competitors Sony and Microsoft. "It's not like we're going to go away from what we do and try something different. We're in for the long haul in gaming."

Publishers not willing to commit... yet

Scibetta wouldn't be tied down to a prediction for how many more sales the Wii U needed before it was a more attractive platform for third-party publishers, saying that "each publisher might give you a different answer on that." Sure enough, the publishers willing to talk on the record gave noncommittal but hopeful answers on the subject of future Wii U support.

"We think that by releasing good games from fan favorite brands, like Mario Kart, Nintendo is taking steps to increase the Wii U’s adoption," an Ubisoft spokesperson told Ars. "We have games coming out for the Wii U this year, including Just Dance 2015 and Watch Dogs. For any other games we announced at E3, it’s too soon to say."

Ubisoft's statement comes after CEO Yves Guillemot told Polygon that the company has a Wii U game "that has been done for six months" but that it is "waiting for more families to have the console" before releasing it. Guillemot also wouldn't give a specific Wii U sales target for when that kind of game would be releasable, but he said games like Super Smash Bros. would likely help the situation immensely.

Electronic Arts wouldn't close the door on future development, even though it hasn't released a single Wii U game since a quartet of launch window ports in 2012. "So far, we haven’t announced any new titles for the Wii U, but that doesn’t preclude us from doing so in the future," an EA spokesperson told Ars.

For now, it seems Nintendo and the third-party publishing community are in alignment with the statement EA Labels President Frank Gibeau made last year regarding the state of third-party support on the Wii U. "The only thing they can do to fix it is to sell more boxes."

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.